The Telegraph
Peta
Thornycroft in Harare
Last Updated: 7:27PM BST 30/05/2008
Zimbabwe's
opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, has called for national
healing as he
delivered a self-styled "state of the nation" address in
Harare.
Mr
Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, opened the door
to
reconciliation with members from the regime of President Robert Mugabe in
an
address to 100 MDC members of parliament.
They had been in hiding since
the MDC won majority control of parliament on
March 29. Many fear reprisals
from supporters of Mr Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party.
The House of Assembly
cannot be convened until there is a new president,
which will not happen
until after a second round of voting on June 27.
The Electoral Commission
said Mr Tsvangirai had beaten Mr Mugabe in the
first round, but not by a
clear majority to avoid a run-off.
After beginning his address with a
minutes silence for the victims of
political violence in Zimbabwe, Mr
Tsvangirai said: "The MDC is the majority
in parliament for the first time
since our liberation in 1980.
"Zimbabwe will witness a new and different
era of governance, an era of
democratic governance by the people for the
people, an era of governance
that shall transform our nation from the past
and present disaster to an era
of new opportunity."
"Our people stand
on the precipice of fear and expectation. They voted for
change and now they
face many risks, indeed we all stand on the bridge
between yesterday’s
betrayal and tomorrow’s promise.
"We have a responsibility to reverse the
tide of intolerance, violence
corruption, hatred and patronage.
"We
have inherited a government that respects neither man, woman or child,
with
no compass for what is right and what is wrong... it doesn’t have to be
this
way.
"We are rich with talents with a tremendous work ethic and we are
rich in
natural resources to attract investors back.”
After the
speech one MP said: "It’s hard to believe we will ever get to be a
normal
country."
He also spoke of a future which he said would include a
"reformed" Zanu-PF
as the opposition.
"Instead of focusing on what
divides us, we must now try to heal our nation.
This means that we can even
talk about restoring Zanu-PF," Mr Tsvangirai
said.
"In the spirit of
moving the country forward, let us seek out those peaceful
members of
Zanu-PF whose eyes are open to the disastrous state of our
nation. Let us
listen to their views. Let us invite them where we have
policy
agreements."
However he ruled out amnesty for those who have killed
people in the
political crisis of the last eight years, saying they had
committed
"criminal" acts.
International Herald Tribune
The Associated PressPublished: May 30,
2008
HARARE, Zimbabwe: Zimbabwe's main opposition group
declared itself the
country's new ruling party on Friday and convened what
it called a session
of parliament, in defiance of President Robert
Mugabe.
In a self-proclaimed "state of the nation" address, Movement for
Democratic
Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai said Zimbabwe was about to
witness "a new
and different era of governance."
Tsvangirai asked his
party's newly elected lawmakers, gathered at the Harare
International
Conference Center, to stand for a minute's silence for more
than 50 people
who have died in violence since the March elections. Tens of
thousands of
opposition supporters have been driven from their homes.
He described
Mugabe's ZANU-PF party as now in opposition.
The opposition won 110 seats
in the 210-seat parliament in March elections,
which gave it control of the
legislature for the first time since
independence from Britain in 1980.
Mugabe's party won 97, and three
by-elections are pending. Parliament has
not yet met.
Tsvangirai also won the presidential ballot but not by
an outright majority,
according to official results. He now faces Mugabe in
a runoff vote June 27.
"I can't see Tsvangirai winning," Zimbabwe Justice
Minister Patrick
Chinamasa told reporters in the South African capital
Pretoria. "If he wins,
it will be a destabilizing event in
Zimbabwe."
He said the ruling party had learned from the mistakes of the
first round,
would mobilize more voters for the runoff and was confident of
victory.
"We went into the election divided within ourselves. We have now
reconciled
and closed ranks behind our candidate," Chinamasa
said.
Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, the minister of information and publicity,
predicted that
Mugabe would win 75 percent in the runoff vote, and his wife,
Grace, said
the 84-year-old veteran would never cede power to Tsvangirai,
according to
the state Herald newspaper on Friday.
Many observers
fear that Mugabe will use intimidation and violence to steal
the
election.
Tsvangerai's "parliament session" was expected to anger
Mugabe's party.
"Healthy democracies have at least two parties and a
reformed ZANU-PF should
be one of them," he said.
Tsvangirai said the
Movement for Democratic Change should woo "those
peaceful members of ZANU-PF
whose eyes are open to the disastrous state of
our nation."
He said
party lawmakers should immediately begin work on a timetable to
rewrite the
constitution and repeal sweeping security and media laws, along
with changes
needed to restore the economy.
"We are an unmitigated embarrassment to
the African continent. Very soon
will be the time for celebration, but now
is the time to get down to work.
It is up to each of us in this room to say
Zimbabwe is open for business,"
Tsvangirai said.
The lawmakers'
agenda was to be based on a "Restore Hope" campaign that
encompassed human
and democratic rights, reconciliation and the nation's
return from
international isolation.
The party proposed establishing a Truth and
Justice Commission that would
investigate crimes against ordinary people and
work out compensation for
victims.
Tsvangirai said there would be no
witch hunt against police, soldiers or
civil servants.
"But there
will be no tolerance or amnesty for those who continue to rape
and kill our
people," he said.
Chinamasa said the Movement for Democratic Change was
"anti-Zimbabwean" and
that it threatened to reverse "all the sacrifices the
Zimbabwean people have
made over the years." The ruling party says
Tsvangirai is a Western pawn.
Mugabe and his wife addressed a rally
Thursday of his party supporters in
the Shamva district, 50 miles (80
kilometers) northeast of Harare, where
Tsvangirai supporters were alleged to
have torched several huts and
assaulted Mugabe followers in recent days, the
official media reported
Friday.
Mrs. Mugabe, her husband's former
secretary, told supporters Mugabe would
not be removed from office by anyone
outside the ZANU-PF party.
"Even if Baba (Mugabe) loses, he will only
leave State House to make way for
someone from
ZANU-PF."
___
Eds: Associated Press correspondent Celean Jacobson
in Pretoria, South
Africa, contributed to this report
---------------------------------
My Fellow Zimbabweans,
Parliamentarians, Distinguished Guests, Friends
Today is an historic occasion. Today I stand before you delivering a State of the Nation address to the new MDC Majority in Parliament!
For the first time since our liberation in 1980, Zimbabwe will witness a new and different era of governance. An era of democratic governance for the people and by the people. An era of governance that transforms our nation from the past and present disaster to an era of new opportunity.
The 29th of March seems a long time ago, but on that day, the MDC won control of the House of Assembly and Senate, and together with our coalition partners, we became Zimbabwe's new ruling party.
Each of you played a part in transforming "opposition" MDC to "ruling party" MDC. This is a huge responsibility for each of us. We cannot point fingers anymore. Our victory must herald a new and better future for our children. Our people-centered model of leadership must herald a new hope for our country.
Ours will be a long and sometimes dangerous road. At the beginning of our new road together, I want to salute each of you for your courage in recent days, and congratulate you as members of the winning team.
Very soon will be a time for celebration, but now is a time for us to get down to work.
As we prepare for the next election, our people stand on a precipice of fear and expectation. They voted for change and now they face many risks. Indeed we all stand on a bridge between yesterday's betrayal and tomorrow's promise. We as leaders have a historic responsibility to reverse the tide of intolerance, violence, corruption, inequality, discrimination, hatred, division, and patronage.
The state of our nation today is well known to all of us. We are an unmitigated embarrassment to the African continent. The state of our nation is actually beyond embarrassment, it is tragic -- the world's highest inflation, 80 % unemployment, education that has plummeted from the best in the Africa to one of the worst and a health care system that has dire shortages of doctors, nurses, medicine, beds and blankets. The State of our Nation today is a State of Despair.
Indeed, MDC as the new ruling party has inherited a government with no accountability to the people, no desire to encourage the growth of business, no commitment to workers to ensure their fundamental rights. We have inherited a government that respects neither man, nor women, nor child. We have inherited a government with no compass for what is right or just or economically sound for the country,
It doesn't have to be this way. We are a great country. We are rich with the talents of a great people with a tremendous work ethic who just want jobs, food, peace, and a future for our children. We are rich in natural resources and rich in resources to attract investors back to Zimbabwe. We can provide the services to feed our people – it is up to each of us in this room to say that Zimbabwe is open for business.
The people of Zimbabwe have chosen the MDC's elected officials to lay the foundations of a new Zimbabwe based on tolerance, equality, respect, solidarity, peace, unity, justice, and humble and obedient leadership.
I want to be clear about the fundamental values that will be the cornerstone, not just of our legislation and our parliament but in fact the values that will guide and steer our government and the course that will take us forward.
A New Zimbabwe will respect the dignity and rights of every man, woman and child and these rights will be enshrined in a people-centered Constitution. A New Zimbabwe will ensure that every man, woman and child has access to food, shelter, employment, healthcare and education.
In a New Zimbabwe every man, woman and child will be able to live together in peace, tolerance and prosperity. In a New Zimbabwe, our police will defend our rights, not destroy our hopes; our army will defend our borders, not attack our people. In a New Zimbabwe, our prisons will detain only criminals, not freedom-loving citizens.
In a New Zimbabwe we will have a People's Parliament that is not a rubber stamp but a true representative of democratic principles and the wishes and aspirations of the great Zimbabwean people. In a New Zimbabwe we will have checks and balances. And, very different from our past, I want the debates in parliament to be covered live on radio and television so that the people's business is not secret. Our MPs will be accountable to the voters, not hidden away behind high walls.
In a New Zimbabwe, too, the people must play a critical part. They must vigilantly keep their elected leaders accountable. They must not ask what the government can do for them, but also what they can each do together and individually to make Zimbabwe great again.
These core values will lay the groundwork for the legislative agenda I will outline today. This agenda is based upon the return of fundamental freedoms to the people of Zimbabwe. We shall call our Legislative Agenda the Restore Hope Campaign –
Kudzoredzera tariro.
The Restore Hope Campaign will launch what I call the Third Republic – the first Republic in Zimbabwe was colonialist oppression that ended in 1980. The Second Republic was rule by those who liberated us from our oppressors but who unfortunately then transformed into irresponsible, violent and undemocratic tyrants. The Third Republic is the next generation of African leaders underpinned by the values of love, tolerance, rule of law and constitutionalism. The Third Republic is a post-liberation transformation -- a consolidation and entrenchment of democratic values and institutions. The Third Republic is the New Zimbabwe.
MDC's Restore Hope Campaign has five components that I shall briefly outline today. These components are not in the chronological order or in order of importance. All must be tackled together as a matter of urgency –
first, we shall urgently promote national healing.
second, we shall restore the people's freedoms,
third, we shall restore the people's dignity,
fourth, we shall restore the people's basic services, and
fifth, we shall restore Zimbabwe to the family of nations.
1. Healing our Nation
The most immediate challenge an MDC government will face is re-knitting the spiritual fabric of our society. Whether MDC, Zanu PF, or Independent, whether old or young, employed or unemployed, armed or civilians – all our people are hurting and deeply traumatized.
The goal of the New Zimbabwe is to rebuild and heal our country. We do not seek to substitute new oppressors for the old ones. Rather than focus on what divides us, we must now try to work together and heal our nation. This means we must even talk about restoring Zanu PF, the failed party of the Second Republic. After all, Zanu PF is the party of Zimbabwe's first liberation.
Healthy democracies generally have at least two political parties. In Zimbabwe, a reformed Zanu PF should remain one of them. Zanu PF members of parliament were elected and re-elected in part because of their proud heritage and their important voice.
While some Zanu PF members perpetrate violence against opposition political parties, not all share this view. Many Zanu PF members are also victimized by the violent hawks who have hijacked their party.
In the spirit of moving our country forward, let us seek out those peaceful members of Zanu PF whose eyes are open to the disastrous state of our nation. Let us listen to their views. Let us invite them in where we have policy agreement.
Our goal is not retribution but restoration – restoration of the community of Zimbabweans as one family, irrespective of race, gender, colour, tribal ancestry or political affiliation. Our goal is a nation that respects minorities and protects vulnerable groups, especially women, youth and people with disabilities.
The aim is not to make us prisoners of the past, but liberate us from that past. Only truth can move us forward. To that end, we must acknowledge the grave hardships, death and destruction perpetrated by the regime over the years.
To that end, MDC's healing, and national integration process will include a Truth and Justice Commission that looks not only at human rights abuses but also at corruption, looting and asset stripping.
To address the most egregious of the regime's abuses, this parliament must pass legislation that deals with compensation and reparations for the victims of Gukurahundi and Murambatsvina. Truth alone is not enough. Our people must be compensated.
With respect to Operation Makavotera Papi, I have established a President's Fund for Victims of Violence to begin the process of healing the physical hardships imposed on our people.
2. Restoring the People's Freedoms: Our Democratisation Agenda
Our legislative agenda to restore the people's freedom will require that we undertake many reforms, but broadly, we seek to undertake two initiatives: first, to embark on a process that results in a democratic constitution that genuinely protects our people; and second to rebuild and professionalize our national institutions such as the civil service, judiciary and security forces.
The first urgent step in restoring our people's freedom's is a new people- driven constitution.
Nine years ago, our desire for a new, people-driven constitution signified the start of our struggle for democracy. The first important task of this parliament will be to create conditions enabling Zimbabweans to write a constitution for themselves and by themselves.
The second task will be to adopt and pass that constitution so that it becomes a living internal document underpinning our democracy. We anticipate there will be some debate on the process of writing that constitution.
Some will opt for an All-Stakeholders conference. Some will suggest a proactive role by this parliament. Some will suggest the position of creating a constitutional assembly. Whatever position is chosen by Zimbabweans, this parliament must guarantee that our constitution will be completed by the people, for the people, in a period no later than 18 months as we guaranteed during the campaign. The consultative process must be thorough and inclusive and our government will ensure that the time and resources are available for this.
The Constitution of Zimbabwe must provide for one sovereign state, Zimbabwean citizenship, and a democratic system of government responsive to the needs and demands of all its people, committed to achieving equality between men and women and people of all races in a free and just society.
The constitution will prohibit racial, gender and all other forms of discrimination, and will promote racial and gender equality and a national unity that is based upon tolerance of diversity.
Everyone who exercises State power does so in trust for the people of Zimbabwe, and must exercise such power in accordance with his or her responsibilities to the people, solely to serve and protect the people's interests, and within the bounds of lawful authority set out in the constitution and other laws of the country. The State and all its organs must be committed to the rule of law, and no person or institution shall be above the law.
Our National Institutions
We are aware that the people who work for the Zimbabwean government today are suffering– be they police, army, CIO, judges, clerks, teachers, secretaries, cleaners or drivers. We are aware they want change. We are aware that most of their lives are as miserable as those who voted for change.
We have been told that some were not allowed to vote for change. We have heard that before the election some even had a sentimental hope that Zanu PF was still the best party to lead this country. We know now though, that since the election, many of the people who work for the Zimbabwean government have lost all faith in Zanu PF.
They feel betrayed, they feel embarrassed, they feel angry that their professional skills were used to steal the people's will right from under their very noses, right in front of SADC and the entire international community. And now, horrifically, some are being ordered to destroy the lives and spirits of their very own brothers and sisters.
In a profound spirit of wanting, and needing, to get our country out of this abyss, we hold out our hands to our brothers and sisters working for the Zimbabwean government, who receive their paltry paychecks to feed their children, yet are ordered to carry out acts for which they feel regretful and humiliated.
They know that our national institutions have become a political tool to perpetuate the power of the regime that does not have their interests at heart, not even the interests of those who work for them. Yet like all of us, employees at these institutions need a job, and they need food. And they are, quite frankly, afraid. Afraid of the change they secretly want, afraid of the change that could, in their minds, lead to retribution against them for the roles they played in the course of their government duties.
What we want to say to our brothers and sisters in the Zimbabwean government, especially those in the security forces, is that our new government is very serious about both rebuilding AND healing our country. In view of the horrors now, it is difficult to say, but we want to lead a country that forgives, but does NOT forget. If we forget, we, of course, risk repeating our mistakes.
To the uniformed forces, let me assure you that we aim to depoliticize your work with immediate effect.
We also take this opportunity to reassure you that it is not the intention of MDC to persecute or victimize any peaceful member of the uniformed services, whether officers or junior members. This assurance has been explained in the MDC policy paper statement to the uniformed forces.
But let me say to all very clearly -- the violence must stop now. There will be no tolerance or amnesty for those who continue to injure, rape, and murder our citizens. We consider these criminal acts, not political acts. Criminal acts will be prosecuted.
Zimbabweans who attack other Zimbabweans are breaking Zimbabwean and international law. The whole world is watching. Cease and desist now, and urge your fellow brothers and sisters to cease and desist. One person at a time we can stop this madness.
Fellow Zimbabweans, you are also aware that beyond the recent violence, for years we have endured legalistic chains that strangle our democratic freedoms.
One of our first acts of parliament will be the repeal of repressive legislation that restricts the freedoms of our people. For example, we all know the regime has created laws merely to sustain its existence, such as AIPPA and POSA, The Broadcasting Services Act and some aspects of the criminal code. Removing these repressive chains will be a first step in launching the MDC's new era of governance
In addition to the reform of state institutions, it is imperative that the private institutions of the New Zimbabwe be liberated from state interference. This means the immediate political unshackling of the media, the business sector, trade unions, churches and non-governmental organizations. If we do not promote, uphold and protect the freedom of these independent pillars of democracy, our post-liberation New Zimbabwe will be stillborn.
To carry out our national institution reform agenda, we will first carry out a democracy audit of the laws in our statutes and liquidate those that contradict our democratic principles. A process of public consultation, debate and dialogue around this immediate task must thus begin as a matter of urgency.
In sum, in rebuilding our national institutions, our aim is to reward professionalism, accountability, efficiency and integrity, and to have zero tolerance for politicization of state institutions and corruption.
3. Restoring the People's Dignity
While an appalling betrayal, the greatest tragedy of the regime's legacy is not the murder of innocent people. The greatest tragedy is the regime's attempt to destroy the spirit and self-confidence of our people.
While the regime vocally pretends it wants to protect the sovereignty of our country, it systematically attacks our very identities as Zimbabweans, forcing millions to scatter to other countries.
Today there are more Zimbabweans in Johannesburg than in Bulawayo. These are not citizens whose first choice was to leave the home of their birth. Their flight to other countries is a direct result of the regime's failures to provide food, jobs, and hope for our people. The brutality faced by some of the Diaspora in South Africa in recent days is a shocking reminder of the regime's failure and its destabilizing impact on the region.
In the New Zimbabwe we will focus on rebuilding the country and restoring the people's dignity. This part of our legislative agenda is complex but today I will briefly mention two key components – economic recovery and land reform.
Economic Recovery
I will not waste time telling you about the state of our economy. You live this shameful reality every day. I imagine it is the most dysfunctional economy in the world.
In order to perpetuate their hold on power, our predecessors destroyed the productive sectors of our economy, impoverishing millions of Zimbabweans. With not enough money being generated by the formal economy, they increased money supply, causing hyperinflation.
My fellow Zimbabweans, the MDC is determined to effectively address the hyperinflation bequeathed upon us by our predecessors using a combination of demand and supply-side interventions. Simultaneously, we will work tirelessly to ensure that macroeconomic stability is accompanied by an immediate supply-side response both as a way to sustain macroeconomic stability and also to raise industrial capacity utilization and productivity levels in industry and create sustainable jobs.
On the demand-side, we have always said that hyperinflation in this country will only be tamed if government's unrestrained appetite for resources is also tamed. The MDC government will be there to serve the people and its size, which will be small, will be defined by the needs of the people and not political perquisites and patronage.
To entrench this culture of fiscal discipline, the MDC will introduce complementary institutional measures, starting with the reform of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, which we will make independent of the executive and accountable parliament. Its mandate will also be streamlined to focus on the maintenance of price stability, monetary policy, and bank supervision. This way, we will banish the quasi-fiscal role of the Central Bank to the dustbins of history.
Another institutional measure will involve tightening the accountability of public enterprises. To ensure that they do not perpetually remain a drain on the fiscus, the MDC will house them in a new Ministry of Public Enterprises, which will set clear performance targets and criteria for which all public enterprises will be held accountable.
These institutional reforms would be incomplete without the overhauling of the civil service and the streamlining of government ministries. This too will be a priority in our efforts to reign in the culture of runaway expenditure and infuse a higher level of efficiency and accountability in Government.
Fellow Zimbabweans, in the past, economic reforms have often impacted most negatively on the poor. We have learned from the hardships resulting from ESAP, and it is our intention to institute measures to mitigate the impact of such economic reforms on the poor in tandem with the introduction of these reforms. While we promise to do our best, we urge our people to have the pride to choose to be independent by being resourceful and hardworking, so as to reduce the burden on government.
It is perhaps the ideal time for me to focus for a while on the supply-side of the economic management challenge. First of all, industry is the goose that lays the golden egg and it is the MDC's intention to ensure that the goose is nurtured and nourished, given the importance of its role for our economic wellbeing. This will be achieved through the introduction of an environment that is conducive to business success and the creation of a symbiotic relationship of partnership between government and the private sector.
My fellow Zimbabweans, we have lofty ambitions for our economy. As we stated in our manifesto, the Zimbabwean economy is an enclave economy that is a fraction of its potential size. Income per capita is unacceptably low and, due to Zanu PF's cronyism and corruption, income distribution, which was also quite uneven, is now at unconscionable levels. Zanu PF affinity for command economics made control the preferred tool for government intervention in the economy over the last three decades.
Our objective is to create an alternative people-centered economy. The opportunity space needs to be opened up to tap into the imaginative creativity of local and foreign entrepreneurs to restore, restructure and rejuvenate our Zimbabwean industry.
Within a globalized world, the MDC appreciates that Zimbabwe is competing for talent and resources with the rest of the world. The MDC government is committed to the creation of an environment that is conducive to business by implementing supply-side measures that will make Zimbabwe one of the best countries in which to do business on the African continent.
While some reforms will take time, parliament must move quickly to pass legislation that establishes the Zimbabwe Economic Development Council. This consultative body must underpin stakeholder ownership and participation as we described in RESTART.
To avoid belaboring this matter too much, let me summarize our four priorities as follows: first, we must halt and reverse the country's shrinking economic output and address hyperinflation; second, we must revive and rehabilitate our industrial base to create jobs and expand our tax base; third, we must restore national credibility to again attract significant inflows of foreign direct investment; fourth and finally, we must address our humanitarian crisis, particularly the shortage of food and medicines.
In conclusion, let me stress that our objective must not be to merely restore the Zimbabwean economy to its former glory but also to take it to new heights. In the words of Haggai Chapter 2 verse 9, it is our passionate prayer and heartfelt desire that "The glory of this latter house … be greater than of the former…"
Land and Agricultural Reform
Let me be clear we must solve the Land Issue once and for all.
Since its inception, the MDC has had an unwavering commitment to a land reform program that is not only non-partisan, equitable, just and lawful, but also does not dislocate agricultural production and productivity. Zimbabwe is still to have such a land reform program. All we have had to date is a disorderly and greedy land-grab, which has not even begun to address the needs of landless people, both in terms of access to land and access to inputs.
We have applied our minds to what needs to be done. It is now time for implementation. Our actions will be guided by the following principles:
· The pre-2000 land distribution program was colonial, unjust and untenable and will never again represent the distribution of land in Zimbabwe.
· Land is not only a productive asset that should be distributed on the basis of need and ability to farm, but it is also a finite asset to be allocated and used wisely for the benefit of all Zimbabweans for generations to come.
· Land ownership is also a constitutional matter. A Land Commission that undertakes the detailed audit of the present as well as pre-2000 land ownership structure should be created to make recommendations on how to resolve the land question in an economically sensible way without negating equity and justice.
· Land ownership is also a social matter. The Land Commission that we propose to be established by legislation during the term of this parliament, should carry out its duties in a consultative manner with the full participation of the broad breadth of our people, inclusive of women.
· Measures must be put in place to either compensate or reincorporate into productive agriculture, those who lost their land during the Zanu PF land grab program, depending on the findings of the Land Commission.
· Access to land is not enough for agricultural productivity. It should be complemented by the provision of the necessary infrastructure, access to agricultural finance, inputs as well as extension services.
Guided by the above principles, the Land Commission, an independent and professional policy organ, will recommend to you, the people's representatives, how this question should be finally resolved. Once the Land Commission has completed its work, we expect the land question to be completely de-politicized by the commission's professional input, making it possible to rely on the market mechanism to determine the ownership of land in the long-term.
As you are aware, there is more to our land policies than what I have outlined above. We intend to banish the colonial system of separate land tenure systems for commercial and communal agriculture. However, we realize the need for creativity and flexibility as we move from the current system to the universally applicable one for all farmers.
We wish to give recognition to the legal right to land through issuance of title deeds, tradeable certificates of title, and leases. Landowners must hold title to their land, regardless of their social class or scale as well as scope of agricultural activity. To ensure the productive use of land and to discourage speculative land holding, we will institute a progressive land tax. The revenue generated from that tax will be applied to the provision of infrastructure and other social services in that community.
Our countrymen and women cannot wait forever for the resolution of the land question. I will say this often as the people's President – work rests squarely on the shoulders of the people's parliament, which should urgently use legislative tools to address this issue once and for all.
Empowerment
Eighty years of colonialism resulted in a complete marginalization of a majority of our people who were virtually third class citizens in their own land. Whilst independence did a commendable job in de-racializing our culture and establishing the key tenet of one-person one-vote, it did not deal with the issues of inequality. In my view, the best guarantor of the democracy we seek to craft in the new Zimbabwe is the economic emancipation and participation of our people.
Over the years, our people have been abused by the Zanu PF policy of indigenization which, although noble sounding on paper, was no more than patronage, clientelism, asset stripping and looting.
MDC now has an opportunity to craft a genuine programme for the empowerment of our people. This programme of affirmative action will be transparent, equitable, and within the rule of law.
To this end, this parliament will enact laws that will ensure that all new investments have significant black ownership. In addition, laws will also be passed that will seek to redress the unequal and inequitable status quo in past investments and shareholdings.
I trust that everyone will understand that if there is not equitable empowerment, and if there is no participation in the economy by the majority, then we are laying a booby-trap for ourselves, and profoundly undermining our aspirations to establish a truly democratic and sustainable post-liberation new Zimbabwe.
4. Restoring Basic Services
My fellow Zimbabweans, monumental work will be required to restore basic infrastructure services to the people, as well as make Zimbabwe a world-class tourist destination once again.
In the past decade, life expectancy in Zimbabwe has fallen below 37 years of age and child mortality rates are amongst the highest in the world. A quarter of our population lives with HIV/Aids. Hundreds of thousands of our citizens have to be fed by the international donor community. An energy and water crisis grips the country with little formal availability of fuel, electricity and clean water. The collapsed sewer reticulation system in urban areas puts all at risk of disease.
I will not take the time here to go into great detail but let me mention some of our key priorities in the immediate future.
First, we need to offer free anti-retrovirals to our people.
Second, we need to ensure the quality and affordability of all our educational establishments. This starts with ensuring that teachers are paid responsibly for the essential work they do. Our children's education is the foundation for our future growth and prosperity. They are our most valuable asset and we must treat them as such.
Third, we must rehabilitate our hospitals. Dispensary hospitals must be places of healing again, not places of dying. This means there must be beds in Gweru hospitals and blankets in Bulawayo hospitals. It means hospitals must again be able to provide food to their own patients. It means our health care system must again offer incentives to attract quality professionals back into our country to help our people become well again.
Fourth, and of urgent importance, nobody in our country should ever go hungry again. Innnovative and completely depoliticized food delivery mechanisms are urgently required whilst we get our agricultural production up and running again.
Our transformative work will also include the restructuring of energy to increase private sector participation as well as the introduction of regulators to avoid monopoly pricing and ensure environmental compliance.
We have similarly comprehensive policy and legislative programs for the transportation and communication sectors. Reform within the transportation sector in particular is long overdue. Our commitment in this regard is unwavering.
As we transform the New Zimbabwe, we will institute policies guided by the need to strike a judicious balance between opening them up for private sector investment while ensuring that they are adequately regulated to protect the interests of the poor and to avoid monopoly pricing, politicization and uncompetitive practices.
We have no illusions about the enormity of these tasks. Tasks only to be implemented by the government?
No. These changes need to be implemented by the people, for the people. We and the people of Zimbabwe need to undertake these enormous challenges as partners, together working toward rebuilding our society. This cooperative partnership between the government and the people will mark a fundamentally different approach in the New Zimbabwe.
5. Restoring Zimbabwe to the Family of Nations
Since 2000 Zimbabwe has transformed from the jewel of Africa to a tragedy. As flawed as it was, our constitution has been pillaged. Our rule of law has crumbled. Our national institutions have been politicized. Our basic services have been decimated. Our productivity has plummeted. Our fertile land cries for skills, implements, and investment.
Several years ago, when Zimbabwe was ousted from the Commonwealth. Mr. Mugabe said he didn't care. When SADC held an emergency summit on 12 April, Mr. Mugabe chose not to attend.
Mr. Mugabe has now even turned his back on Africa.
We, as MDC, are ready to return Zimbabwe to the family of democratic nations. We are ready to rejoin our brothers and sisters in SADC and the AU who also value the freedom, prosperity and dignity of their peoples.
In the past six weeks, as the winner of the Presidential election and as head of the majority party in parliament, I have met with leaders from throughout the African continent. They, along with United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, and other world leaders have expressed concern and outrage that the will of the people of Zimbabwe has once again been betrayed. They are all too well aware, some even very embarrassed, that the regime has broken promises and agreements to hold free and fair elections.
We look forward very soon to rejoining the family of nations committed to democratic governance and economic prosperity. Returning prosperity to our nation will be much easier and much faster when we rejoin the global community of nations.
In closing, Honourable Members of the House of Assembly and Senate, let me say again how very honoured I am to launch the Restore Hope Campaign with you today – a new era of governance for a new Zimbabwe. Once again let me congratulate you for your victories and salute you for your courage.
Honorable members, let us go forward now and finish what we have begun.
Let us go forward together to serve the people, to commit ourselves to rebuilding our country, to dedicate ourselves to creating a New Zimbabwe that offers all its citizens freedom, hope and prosperity.
Chinja Matiro, Matiro Chinja.
Guqula Isenzo, Isenzo Guqula.
I thank you and may God bless Zimbabwe.
IOL
May 30 2008
at 04:25PM
Harare - MPs and senior officials of Zimbabwe's
opposition Movement
for Democratic Change met in a symbolic "parliament" on
Friday to assert
their new role following the party's victory in March
general elections.
"On that day on March 29, the MDC won control of
parliament," MDC
leader Morgan Tsvangirai said as he delivered a "state of
the nation"
address in a conference centre in Harare. "Together with our
coalition
partners, we have become Zimbabwe's new ruling
party."
Tsvangirai's MDC inflicted its first-ever election defeat
on President
Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party by winning 99 seats in the
210-seat House of
Assembly against Mugabe's 97.
A smaller MDC
faction took 10 seats. "We (the two factions) are going
to work together
now," Tsvangirai said.
The 56-year-old former national trade union
chief also won 48 per cent
of the vote against 84-year-old Mugabe's 43 per
cent in simultaneous
presidential elections, according to the Zimbabwe
Electoral Commission.
A run-off election between the two has been
set down for June 27.
The MDC decided to stage the "parliament"
minus Zanu-PF because Mugabe
was delaying in calling a sitting of the new
parliament, party spokesman
Nelson Chamisa said.
"This is the
majority in parliament. We are going to elect a speaker.
We are now waiting
for the national parliament to resume."
Tsvangirai described the
state of Zimbabwe as "a state of despair,"
and "an unmitigated embarrassment
to the African continent" after 28 years
under Mugabe.
The MDC
would establish a legislative programme "based on the return
of fundamental
freedoms to the people of Zimbabwe," he said, announcing the
MDC's "Restore
Hope" campaign, to promote "national healing," to restore
"the dignity and
freedom" of people and public services and to return
Zimbabwe to "the family
of nations."
"Our army will defend our borders, not attack our
people," he said.
"Our prisons will hold only criminals, not innocent
people."
He promised "a people-driven constitution" within 18
months. The
government would also set up a "truth and justice commission"
that would
investigate human rights abuses, as well as
corruption.
The MDC's goal was "not retribution, but restoration,"
he said.
The party would not victimize members of the security
forces, many of
whom are reported to be involved in the wave of violence
unleashed almost
immediately after the March elections.
"The
violence must stop," he said. "There will be no tolerance or
amnesty for
anyone who continues to murder, rape and pillage."
One of his
government's first acts would be to abolish repressive
legislation.
The MDC was also determined to address
hyperinflation - reported
Friday to have reached 1,7-million percent in May
- "through a combination
of demand and supply-side measures."
He said the issue of land would be "completely depoliticized" and his
government would establish a land commission to revive the country's
agriculture system, on a basis of "need and ability" by people who wanted to
farm.
"Measures must be put in place to compensate or
reintegrate those who
lost their land" under Mugabe's notorious land
seizures that began in 2000
with the lawless eviction of over 4 000 white
farmers and triggered economic
collapse. - Sapa-dpa
iafrica.com
Article By: Fanuel Jongwe
Fri,
30 May 2008 15:19
Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai launched a scathing
attack on President
Robert Mugabe's rule of Zimbabwe Friday, saying he had
transformed a country
rich in natural resources into a "state of
despair".
In a self-styled state of the nation address to lawmakers from
his Movement
for Democratic Change party, Tsvangirai also vowed there would
be no amnesty
for perpetrators of political violence if he takes power from
Mugabe at a
run-off election due in four weeks.
"The state of our
nation is a state of despair," said Tsvangirai who is
looking to end
Mugabe's 28-year rule at the ballot box on 27 June.
"We have the world's
highest inflation rate, 80 percent unemployment, an
education sector which
has plummeted from one of the best to one of the
worst."
Tsvangirai
said there could be no justification for the mess in the country
which was
regarded as a post-colonial role model in the first
decade-and-a-half after
independence from Britain in 1980.
"We are a rich country with natural
resources. We have the resources to
attract foreign investors," said
Tsvangirai.
Meltdown
Zimbabwe's economy has been in meltdown
since the start of the decade when
Mugabe embarked on a controversial land
reform programme which saw thousands
of white-owned farms expropriated by
the state.
A spiralling inflation rate, officially put at 165,000 percent
but thought
to be many times higher, has frightened off investors as has a
new bill
which requires locals to own a 51 percent stake in all firms
operating in
Zimbabwe.
A one-time regional breadbasket, Zimbabwe now
experiences regular shortages
of even the most basic foodstuffs such as a
cooking oil, sugar and maize.
Mugabe's government has in turn blamed the
country's problems on a limited
programme of sanctions imposed by the West
after he allegedly rigged his
2002 re-election.
"The government is
doing its best to import grain in a bid to counter the
adverse effects of
sanctions. We are fighting imperialists' machinations,"
said Information
Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu in comments reported by the
state-run Herald
newspaper on Friday.
Mugabe will win - Ndlovu
Ndlovu also
predicted that Mugabe would thrash Tsvangirai on 27 June,
winning
three-quarters of the votes.
Tsvangirai fell just short of an outright
majority in a first round of
voting on 29 March needed to avoid a
run-off.
But his MDC wrested control of parliament from Mugabe's Zanu-PF
(Zimbabwe
African National Union - Patriotic Front) in a simultaneous
legislative
poll.
"We conducted an opinion poll recently and it
indicated that Zanu-PF is
going to win the forthcoming elections
resoundingly," said Ndlovu.
"The electorate has built hope in us because
we have put in place measures
that are protecting them against the
ever-increasing cost of living."
The period since the original polling
day has been marked by a steady rise
in political violence which the MDC
says has seen more than 50 of its
supporters killed by por-Mugabe
militias.
"The violence that is taking place must stop. There will be no
tolerance or
amnesty for those who torture or injure or kill other
citizens," said
Tsvangirai.
"Zimbabweans who are attacking other
Zimbabweans must cease and desist now."
The 84-year-old Mugabe — Africa's
oldest leader — has in turn accused the
MDC of "terrorising" his supporters,
although the UN says the opposition has
borne the brunt of the
attacks.
AFP
Reuters
Fri 30 May
2008, 10:56 GMT
By Nelson Banya
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's
ruling ZANU-PF party should be reformed,
opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai
said on Friday in a speech that may open
the door to a national unity
government.
Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) won the
March 29
parliamentary election with a slim majority, handing ZANU-PF its
worst
defeat since President Robert Mugabe led it to power after
independence from
Britain in 1980.
The MDC leader is trying to
galvanise support across party lines as he
prepares to face Mugabe in a June
27 presidential run-off election.
Tsvangirai won a parallel presidential
poll in March but not by a margin
needed to avoid a second
ballot.
"Instead of focusing on what divides us, we must now try to heal
our nation.
This means that we can even talk about restoring ZANU-PF,"
Tsvangirai told
the MDC parliamentary caucus and the media in an address in
the capital
Harare.
"In the spirit of moving the country forward, let
us seek out those peaceful
members of ZANU-PF whose eyes are open to the
disastrous state of our
nation. Let us listen to their views. Let us invite
them where we have
policy agreements."
But Tsvangirai, who has
previously broached the idea of working with
Mugabe's ZANU-PF in a future
government, said there would be no cooperation
with what he described as the
"violent hawks" in the ruling party.
He added that there would be no
amnesty from prosecution for those who
continued to engage in political
violence.
The MDC says more than 50 people have been killed in
election-related
attacks since March, blaming elements within ZANU-PF for
the bloodshed.
Mugabe's officials say MDC supporters are
responsible.
"We want to warn the MDC they should stop immediately this
barbaric campaign
of theirs," Mugabe said on Thursday during a visit with
supporters who
claimed their houses were torched and destroyed by
anti-Mugabe forces.
The opposition and human rights groups have accused
Mugabe and his officials
of trying to intimidate opponents ahead of the
vote. They also fear that his
government will rig the results of the poll,
as it is accused of doing in
past elections.
Mugabe and Tsvangirai
say they are confident of victory.
Looking ahead to a post-election
transition, Tsvangirai said on Friday he
intended to reform the civil
service, judiciary and security forces but
pledged not to embark on a purge
of pro-Mugabe officers or officials.
The MDC leader also outlined a plan
to revive Zimbabwe's economy, which has
collapsed in the face of a sharp
drop in agricultural production, a scarcity
of foreign investment and
soaring inflation, which is currently at more than
165,000
percent.
State enterprises and the central bank will be restructured, he
said.
(Writing by Paul Simao; Editing by Richard Williams)
Reuters
Fri May 30,
2008 5:17pm BST
By Nelson Banya
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's
opposition leader called for reform of the
ruling ZANU-PF in a gesture that
could open the door to a national unity
government, but an ally of President
Robert Mugabe appeared to reject any
co-operation.
Morgan
Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) won the March 29
parliamentary election with a slim majority, handing ZANU-PF its worst
defeat since Mugabe led it to power after independence from Britain in
1980.
The MDC leader is trying to rally support across party lines as he
prepares
to face Mugabe in a June 27 presidential run-off election.
Tsvangirai won a
parallel presidential poll in March but not by the margin
needed to avoid a
second ballot.
"Instead of focusing on what divides
us, we must now try to heal our nation.
This means that we can even talk
about restoring ZANU-PF," Tsvangirai said
in a speech in Harare.
"In
the spirit of moving the country forward, let us seek out those peaceful
members of ZANU-PF whose eyes are open to the disastrous state of our
nation. Let us listen to their views. Let us invite them where we have
policy agreements."
But Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa said the
two parties pursued
conflicting ideologies, suggesting an MDC government
would try to reverse
land reforms that forcibly redistributed white-owned
farms among blacks.
"Our political platform in ZANU-PF is diametrically
opposite to the
political platform of the MDC. We've made many strides but
more particularly
in consolidating the gains of our revolution," Chinamasa
told a news
briefing in South Africa.
"The political platform of the
opposition is to reverse the gains of the
revolution to restore white
occupation of our land. It's a political
platform that will destabilise the
country. It's like a declaration of war,"
he said.
UNITY TALK
PREMATURE
"I think that discussion on the government of national unity,
or whatever
you want to call it, is prematurely being raised," added
Chinamasa, who is
in South Africa attending a ministerial meeting on
prisons.
Chinamasa said a ruling party analysis showed that 600,000 of
its supporters
had not bothered to vote on March 29 due to complacency,
undermining
ZANU-PF's tally.
Tsvangirai, who has previously broached
the idea of working with Mugabe's
ZANU-PF in a future government, said there
would be no cooperation with what
he described as the "violent hawks" in the
ruling party.
He added that there would be no amnesty from prosecution
for those who
continued to engage in political violence.
The MDC says
more than 50 people have been killed in election-related
attacks since
March, blaming elements within ZANU-PF. Mugabe's officials say
MDC
supporters are responsible.
"We want to warn the MDC they should stop
immediately this barbaric campaign
of theirs," Mugabe said on Thursday as he
met supporters who said their
houses were torched and destroyed by
anti-Mugabe forces.
The opposition and human rights groups have accused
Mugabe and his officials
of trying to intimidate opponents ahead of the
vote. They also fear that his
government will rig the results of the poll,
as it is accused of doing in
past elections.
Mugabe and Tsvangirai
say they are confident of victory.
Looking ahead to a post-election
transition, Tsvangirai said he intended to
reform the civil service,
judiciary and security forces but pledged not to
purge pro-Mugabe
officials.
The MDC leader also outlined a plan to revive Zimbabwe's
economy, battered
by more than 165,000 percent inflation, while state
enterprises and the
central bank would be restructured.
(Additional
reporting by Emelia Sithole-Matarise in Pretoria; Editing by
Giles
Elgood)
SW Radio Africa
(London)
30 May 2008
Posted to the web 30 May 2008
Tererai
Karimakwenda
Zimbabwe's ruling party is reported to have ordered the
entire police force
to vote for Robert Mugabe in the presidential runoff
election on June 27, in
a desperate bid to ensure victory against MDC leader
Morgan Tsvangirai.
ZANU-PF is apparently wasting no time. According to
the newly elected MDC MP
for Mkokoba, Thabitha Khumalo, police officers in
Bulawayo were summoned to
Donnington Police Station on Friday, where senior
police officials said they
were not happy that ZANU-PF did not receive the
majority of votes in the
first round of elections on March
29th.
Khumalo said those who were not on the voters roll were being
secretly
registered together with their families. This is yet another
example of
completely illegal rigging because registration was closed to
voters on
February 15th. "But this is ZANU-PF and they do they want", said
the MDC
legislator.
Khumalo said that all police officers were
ordered to cast their votes
through the postal system. They are to fill in
their ballot papers in the
presence of superior officers, who will monitor
who they vote for. They were
also told that their ballot papers would have a
serial number that
identifies who they are and can later reveal who they
voted for.
As more 'motivation' to vote for Mugabe, the police officers
were told that
the MDC plans to fire them all if they come to power, and
return the country
back to white rule. This is why they should make sure
they keep their jobs
and support their families, otherwise they should
resign immediately.
Khumalo said the MDC has no plans to fire police
officers if the party wins
the presidential election, and they would not
return the country back to
colonial times as has been suggested by Mugabe in
his campaign speeches. She
described ZANU-PF tactics as shameful because
they are denying the police
officers their constitutional right to vote for
the leader of their choice.
She also said it was blackmail, because no-one
in Zimbabwe wants to lose
their job when unemployment is over 80
percent.
But it is still widely believed that Mugabe will lose the
election, no
matter what he tactics he tries. People have had enough of the
misery.
SW Radio Africa
(London)
30 May 2008
Posted to the web 30 May 2008
Lance
Guma
The 78-year-old grandmother of MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa,
along with his
mother and young brother, were severely assaulted early
Friday morning when
armed soldiers raided their rural homestead in
Gutu.
Two groups of soldiers numbering about 40 went about terrorizing
villagers
who were sleeping in over 100 homesteads in the Chiwara Village.
They
demanded that villagers show them Chamisa's rural home while they
shouted,
'Tinoda Chitaka cha Chamisa (we want Chamisa's
heart)'.
Chamisa told Newsreel they beat up his family for over 2
hours and his
13-year-old brother, a grade 7 student, fainted four times
during his
assault. His mother was beaten while naked. Those assaulted were
made to lie
down on the floor on their stomachs while the soldiers beat them
up. The
soldiers later fired their AK-47's into the air as they drove away
from the
area. Chamisa said the area resembled a war zone. He blamed the
operation on
army Major General Engelbert Rugejo, whom he said sanctioned
the operation
in the area.
Chamisa's grandmother sustained a broken
arm while other family members were
also badly injured. He says he filed a
report with the police who drove to
the area and recorded statements from
villagers. A distraught Chamisa blamed
Mugabe for the violence and said
liberation war heroes like Josiah Tongogara
and Herbert Chitepo did not
fight for the country's freedom only to have
Mugabe behave in this manner.
He said he did not understand why the soldiers
would look for him in the
rural homestead when they knew where he worked in
Harare.
Asked
whether it was wise for the party to continue campaigning in such a
climate
of violence Chamisa said they would not allow Mugabe an easy victory
by
withdrawing from the run-off. He vowed that members of the party were
prepared to die for a free Zimbabwe.
Yahoo News
Fri May 30, 12:13 PM ET
PRETORIA (AFP) - The Zimbabwe
government accused the US ambassador to Harare
on Friday of transporting
opposition victims of post-election violence to
hospital and paying for
their treatment.
Only days after President Robert Mugabe threatened to
expel ambassador James
McGee for "interfering" in Zimbabwe's internal
affairs, Justice Minister
Patrick Chinamasa said there was clear evidence
the envoy was siding with
supporters of the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC).
"The US ambasssador had been collecting from the
scene of crime only MDC
victims," Chinamasa told reporters at the Zimbabwean
embassy in South
Africa.
"He drove them to hospital where he paid in
full, in advance, for their
medical expenditure."
Zimbabwe has been
rocked by violence since a first round presidential
election on March 29
between Mugabe and MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, which
has been steadily
increasing with the approach of a run-off poll on June 27.
While the
United Nations and rights groups say most of the violence has been
perpetrated by followers of Mugabe's ZANU-PF party, the government says the
real picture has been distorted.
"We have heard cases where the US
ambassador has been moving round with
journalists and photographers in
places where there had been no violence,"
said Chinamasa, who is one of
Mugabe's staunchest allies.
"That gives you one conclusion -- they are
going to foment the violence in
order to take pictures."
Relations
between the United States and Zimbabwe have been tense ever since
Washington
imposed sanctions against Mugabe and his inner circle after he
allegedly
rigged his 2002 re-election.
In a speech last Sunday, Mugabe threatened
to expel McGee "if he makes one
more wrong step."
There was no
immediate reaction to the latest accusations from the US
embassy in
Harare.
New Zimbabwe
By
Lindie Whiz
Last updated: 05/31/2008 20:54:40
A LOOSE unity pact between
the two factions of Zimbabwe’s opposition
Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC) got its first major test, and flunked
it, on Friday when they both
fielded candidates in three by-elections.
The Zimbabwe Electoral
Commission (ZEC) has set June 27 as the date for the
three by-elections in
Pelandaba-Mpopoma, Redcliff and Gwanda, to be held on
the same day as the
presidential election runoff between President Robert
Mugabe and Morgan
Tsvangirai.
Officials from the two MDC factions which have agreed to vote
as a block in
parliament, in the process forming a majority over Mugabe’s
Zanu PF party,
were keen to field a single candidate.
But that fell
apart when both factions put forward candidates for the
by-elections
postponed on March 29 due to the death of candidates for the
MDC faction led
by Morgan Tsvangirai.
At the close of the Nomination Court in Bulawayo,
MDC had fielded Dhumani
Gwetu and the MDC-T had fielded Samuel Sandla
Khumalo. There were two new
names in Leonard Nkala, representing PUMA, and
Gwetu. The other candidates
are Dr Sikhanyiso Duke Ndlovu (Zanu PF), Job
Sibanda and Mr Fungai Mutukwa
(both independents), Samuel Mahlamvana Ndlovu
(United People’s Party) and
Chamunorwa Mahachi of the Zimbabwe Democratic
Party.
Innocent Ncube, presiding during nomination, said Paul Siwela, who
was
representing Zapu Federal Party, had written them a letter withdrawing
from
the race.
The Nomination Court which sat at the Gwanda
Magistrate Courts at 10AM, saw
the Zanu PF candidate, Orders Mlilo
successfully reaffirming his
participation through a letter to the
nomination court. MDC T’s Nephat
Mdlongwa also managed to file his papers
successfully. But Garfield Makwati,
the son of the late MDC candidate, Glory
Makwati was disqualified because
his name was not on the voters’ roll of the
constituency he intended to
represent as required by law. After his
disqualification, the MDC slotted in
Elizabeth Ndlovu who was defeated by
Makwati in the party’s primary
elections held on May 11.
In Redcliff,
four candidates were duly nominated with Gilmond Karigambe to
represent the
MDC and Sheunesu Muza standing on a Zanu PF ticket. MDC-T
faction fielded
two candidates -- Aaron Chinhara and Tapera Sengweni.
New Zimbabwe
Last updated: 05/31/2008 20:54:42
THREE South African
nationals arrested at a police roadblock in Mbalabala at
the weekend and
found in possession of “illegal” broadcasting equipment with
Britain’s Sky
News television logos were convicted on Friday, and will spend
the weekend
in jail awaiting sentence on Monday.
Bernet Hasani Sono, 34, Resemate Boy
Chauke, 46, and Simon Maodi alias
Musimani, 38, -- all from Johannesburg --
pleaded guilty to the charge
before Matabeleland provincial magistrate, John
Masimba.
Masimba indicated that although their sentences were ready, he
was unable to
hand it down because of several legal issues that he has to
look at before
passing sentence.
One of those issues relates to an
application by Walter Bongani Dube, of the
Attorney General’s Office, for
forfeiture of the motor vehicle and the
broadcasting equipment that was
recovered following the three men’s arrest.
Dube said since the trio had
indicated that the vehicle did not belong to
them and that the equipment
recovered in the motor vehicle was not theirs,
the items could not be
surrendered back to them.
“The equipment has Sky News logos and up to now
no-one has come forward to
claim ownership. No one knows how the equipment
was brought into the country
and there is a possibility that it might be
used to commit an offence if it
not forfeited. It is the State’s submission
that the forfeiture of the car
and equipment would not have any effect on
the trio,” submitted Dube.
In response, the trio’s lawyer, Tawengwa Hara,
pointed out that the car
belonged to Sono’s employers and had been hired to
come and collect the
broadcasting equipment.
“The State has conceded
that the equipment was not used to commit a crime in
the country. There are
no conclusive investigations that show that the
equipment was illegally
brought into the country and as such there is no
need for an order for
forfeiture,” said Hara quoting a number of decided
cases.
Sono and
Musimani were also convicted of contravening a Section of the
Immigration
Act.
In mitigation, Hara pleaded with the court to exercise lenience with
his
clients, saying their offence should only attract a monetary
penalty.
Skye News is just one of dozen other foreign TV networks banned
from
covering Zimbabwe’s March 29 elections. But the TV station did manage
to get
some of its reporters on Zimbabwean soil, ignoring warnings by the
Zimbabwe
government.
Also Friday, Sky News’ Johannesburg bureau chief
Dan Williams said the men
were not Skye News staff. “We are investigating
the matter,” he said,
declining further comment.
Zimbabwean
prosecutors say Sono and Musimani entered Zimbabwe at 6AM on
Friday last
week through the Beitbridge border post without valid travelling
documents
and failed to present themselves to the immigration authorities.
On the
same day, the pair, now in the company of Chauke, was driving along
the
Bulawayo-Beitbridge Road towards Beitbridge enroute to South Africa when
they encountered a roadblock mounted by police and Zimbabwe Revenue
Authority officers just after 5PM.
While the police were carrying out
their routine checks, they saw some boxes
loaded in the motor vehicle. One
of the police officers opened one of the
boxes, which was closed but not
locked, and discovered that it contained
some broadcasting equipment,
prosecutors said.
The men failed to give a satisfactory explanation to
the possession of the
broadcasting equipment leading to their
arrest.
The men led police to Number 13, Bessborough Road, Belmont, in
Bulawayo
where they had picked up the equipment. The premises are owned by
Craig
Markram Edy of Hillside, Bulawayo.
Edy has been arrested and
also appeared in court on Friday. Masimba granted
him $40 billion bail with
strict reporting conditions, but the prosecutor
objected, and is launching
an appeal. Edy remains in custody.
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com
May 30, 2008
By Our
Correspondent
HARARE - Former United Nations (UN) secretary-general Kofi
Annan says he is
holding behind-the-scenes talks with Zimbabwe’s feuding
parties to find ways
of ending the crisis which has reduced the once
prosperous country to a
basket case.
He said tyrannical rule should
be condemned unreservedly.
Speaking in an interview with CNN on Thursday,
Annan said it was appalling
that Zimbabwe, once considered a regional
economic giant had condemned
itself to such an economic abyss.
“We should
be able to condemn tyranny and bad leadership wherever it may
come from and
whoever the leader - white or black,” said Annan. “Now you
have a situation
in Zimbabwe, which is extremely difficult for the people.
“When you have
inflation as high as it is; when you have an economy that has
collapsed;
when you see an economy that was once the breadbasket of the
region become a
basket case, there is something wrong.”
The former UN boss, who mediated
in the political crisis in Kenya, brushed
aside government criticism
suggesting that foreign intervention in resolving
the political crisis in
the country was interference.
He revealed during the interview that he
was reaching out to both Zanu-PF
and the MDC in trying to find a solution to
the country’s political logjam
”The tendency for some to think this is an
internal matter is nonsense,”
said Annan. “An internal matter that creates
three million refugees in a
neighbouring country. … cannot be seen as purely
internal.
“This is why I am happy to see SADC and AU becoming as engaged
and helping
to find a solution. I myself, as I said, am talking to them (MDC
and
Zanu-PF) behind the scenes.”
The Ghanaian diplomat’s relations
with President Mugabe soured after he
ordered an audit of a controversial
demolition exercise carried three years
ago. He said whoever emerges
victorious in next month’s presidential run-off
should embrace the other
party.
”There is concern that whatever the outcome of the elections there is
need
for dialogue,” he said. “There is need for some mediation between the
two
groups regardless of who wins. President Mugabe and his party have run
Zimbabwe for over twenty-eight years.
“The opposition hasn’t had the
chance to govern because alternates that you
expect in a democracy have not
happened and so it is going to be extremely
difficulty whether the
opposition wins, they will need to find a way of
living with Zanu-PF who
have had control levers of power for so long and
know the situation so
well.”
Zimbabwe is grappling with an agonizing political and economic
crisis, which
critics blame on misrule and mismanagement by President Mugabe
and his
administration. But the government denies the charge and instead
blames the
MDC and its alleged Western allies for working to unseat Zanu-PF
from power.
This is an ‘agro cheque’ (click on it to enlarge). It looks like it has been printed on ordinary office paper and it feels like it too!
Zanu PF’s PR skills reached new heights with this one. In Zimbabwe, if someone says ‘That person was agro’, they are actually saying, ‘That person was very very angry’. So Zanu PF has given us a new ‘currency’ note that captures the mood of the country and our views of them perfectly. Most people are feeling fairly ‘agro’ about the new cheques and about the state of our economy.
You can imagine the conversations going on whenever people hand an ‘agro-cheque’ to someone else:
“How much agro are you asking me to give for that?” or “Whaaaat? It costs HOW much?! I am going to have to give you some agro for that!”.
Inevitably, transactions go hand in hand with - at the very least - a knowing scornful look about the note and the party that gave them to us, but more frequently they get handed over with comment about the need for change and how ‘agro’ we are feeling that day.
Maybe this isn’t as politically inept as it seems. One could also argue that they are perfectly named and reflect the attitude and character of the government that created them - the ‘agro’ government, filled with ‘agro’ people who rule with aggression and fear and violence. Mugabe is proud of his thuggish-basher-bruiser image so maybe he gets a small sense of pride everytime he sees this Monopoly money.
Either way, I honestly can’t see how this currency does the government any good at all. They are a complete campaign gift to the MDC.
‘Agro’ feelings are forcast to grow over the next few weeks: my edition of zwnews today had news that inflation has hit a whopping 1,700,000%, and it is apparently forecast to hit between 1,800,000% and 2,000,000% by the end of this month. I wonder how soon it will be before the ‘agro’ government needs to print off a few more ‘agro’ cheques in bigger denominations so we can feed our increasingly ‘agro’ feelings towards them?
May inflation rose by 961 396 percentage points from the April figure of 732 604% to 1 694 000%. The 1 694 000% was for the CSO’s inflation computations for the period from May 1 to May 23.
Violence is not going to dent our growing lack of respect for a government rudely clinging onto power and dragging an entire nation down with it.
Do you remember our post on ‘Defiant humour‘? I thought you’d like to see a copy of the Zanu PF Campaign advert that appeared in a local newspaper and inspired the joke. Both the advert and the joke are below. Click here to enlarge the advert, and here to enlarge the mocked-up (pun intended) version.
Zimbabwe, Harare�With d-day June 27 fast approaching,
ZANU-PF and Mugabe are leaving nothing to chance in their bid to reclaim the
presidency. They have adopted a multifaceted approach, hatched by Emerson
Mnangagwa, the man who is now positioned to succeed Mugabe in the party. The working plan, one that is able to change to suit the opportunities that
have come along since March 29, has as its primary core the use of violence on
the supporters of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in the rural areas in
a Caesarian move to coax them to vote for Mugabe on June 27. However, MDC leader
Morgan Tsvangirai noted that violence will not reap dividends for Mugabe on
Election Day. He said the people of western Zimbabwe, where 20 000 people died
in the Gukurahundi "madness", had proved that violence doesn't work. "If violence pays, then Matabeleland should be the bedrock of support for
ZANU-PF. They have beaten themselves into serious rejection by the people of
Zimbabwe," Tsvangirai said at his first news conference after returning to the
country following a month stay abroad. Above and beyond this, Mugabe is working to boost the number of people who
will vote for him without being probed in the back. This secondary tenet
involves using the tried and tested methods of the past elections like donating
food to the starving masses on the eve of an election. Yesterday in Murehwa, Mugabe announced at a rally that: �Yesterday the
(central bank) governor was telling me that they bought over 600,000 tonnes of
maize from South Africa.� It is understood that the food will start arriving in
the country next week and continue until the week before June 27
thereabouts. The MDC has called the purchase of the maize a publicity stunt, a political
tool against opponents of the administration. �It just demonstrates one thing;
ZANU-PF has no clear policy to ameliorate the problems that are abundant in this
country. Those tonnages of maize that have been bought are not intended to
provide a long-term solution, but to simply win votes. They are going to go to
ZANU-PF supporters instead of going to the nation and to the people in need.
That surely, does not constitute a way forward to resolving the crisis in this
country,� MDC international affairs secretary Eliphas Mukonoweshuro said on
Friday. �I don�t believe that the people of Zimbabwe would be enticed by politics of
this nature. They do not want to eat once. Rather, they want to eat for the rest
of their lives. They want solutions that would guarantee that they would be able
to fend for themselves as they have always done,� Mukonoweshuro
noted. In purchasing the maize from South Africa, RBZ Governor Gideon Gono
consciously and shrewdly turned his back on Zambia, a country that ZANU-PF
insiders believes is bent on seeing Mugabe defeated in the election. �If
Mwanawasa (Zambian president) is not anti-ZANU-PF, why then did he throw
spanners into our pre-March 29 election strategy by withholding the maize that
we had bought to give to the people,� ZANU-PF officials ask. The Zambians claimed at that time that their failure in delivering the maize
was a result of manpower shortage, to which ZANU-PF responded by dispatching
Border Gezi National Service alumni, whom the Zambians summarily deported the
moment they set foot on Zambian soil, confirming ZANU-PF�s theories that
Mwanawasa has joined forces with the British and the Americans to effect regime
change in Zimbabwe. In addition to mandating that police and all their spouses vote in the
run-off by postal ballots under the watchful eye of their superiors, a strategy
that is believed will boost Mugabe�s vote tally by up to 30 000 votes, the
ZANU-PF government has stepped in to help transport victims of xenophobic
attacks in South Africa back to Zimbabwe. �Zimbabwe's government has sent 10 buses and trucks to South Africa to take
home Zimbabweans wanting to leave the country over a recent spate of xenophobic
violence,� Zimbabwe's ambassador to South Africa Simon Khaya Moyo said on
Friday, speaking to SA-FM radio. As a carrot to induce the Zimbabwean refugees in South Africa to not only go
back to Zimbabwe but also to vote for Mugabe on June 27, Simon Khaya Moyo
reiterated Mugabe�s pledge to give the returnees land. ZANU-PF has not forgotten
that they won the past two elections on the premise, crafted by political
turncoat Prof. Jonathan Moyo, that Land is the Economy, the Economy is the
Land. Mnangagwa also understands the value of information, hence his decision to
fire Henry Muradzikwa from ZBH, the man considered by ZANU-PF to have aided in
the MDC�s victories on March 29. Since Muradzikwa left, ZBC TV and Radio are
churning out pro-ZANU-PF messages, with even the ZBC TV workers going into the
broadcaster�s library to dig deep and come out with old grainy footage that
eulogizes Mugabe & ZANU-PF. Not to be outdone, the Herald & Chronicle daily churn out pro-Mugabe
messages for the people to consume. Patrick Chinamasa said Friday that an estimated 600,000 ZANU-PF supporters
had stayed at home in March and things would be very different next time round.
"People who wanted to vote for the opposition candidates came to the poll. The
people who did not go to vote are our supporters," he said. "Our strategy is to awaken the sleeping vote. The realisation that the party
could lose power will re-energise them." Can this election strategy deliver Mugabe the presidency? Only time will
tell.--Harare Tribune
Asked where the land, to be allocated to the returnees, would be
found Moyo said there was still plenty of land to be "resettled." Though
estimates vary, it is understood that large swaths, up to 70%, of the land
seized from around 4 000 white commercial farmers since 2000, is lying idle, the
beneficiaries of the land having turned tail and fled to�South Africa, to seek
the proverbial greener pastures. These are the same people ZANU-PF wants to give
land to.
UN Integrated
Regional Information Networks
30 May 2008
Posted to the web 30 May
2008
Johannesburg
More than 10,000 children have been displaced by
election violence in
Zimbabwe, according to the UN Children's Fund
(UNICEF).
In a statement UNICEF said that it "strongly denounced the
political
violence that has displaced at least 10,000 children in Zimbabwe,
and that
is affecting the continued delivery of humanitarian relief to
children and
their families in parts of the country."
Since the
elections on 29 March, in which the ZANU-PF party lost control of
parliament
for the first time since independence from Britain in 1980, and
the
incumbent president, Robert Mugabe, narrowly avoided being eliminated in
the
presidential vote, there have been widespread reports of violence,
allegedly
committed mainly by government security forces, veterans of
Zimbabwe's
liberation war, and the ZANU-PF youth militia.
Various reports put the
number of people killed in politically motivated
violence since the 29 March
poll at more than 50.
A run-off presidential ballot between Mugabe and
Morgan Tsvangirai, leader
of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change,
is scheduled for 27 June.
A Zimbabwean-based humanitarian worker, who
declined to be named, said he
had seen many children, some as young as 8
years old, tortured by burning,
allegedly by militia loyal to Mugabe's
ruling party. The humanitarian worker
told IRIN the "branding" was both in
retribution for ZANU-PF losing the
parliamentary poll, and intimidation
tactics used against their parents
ahead of the run-off
vote.
"Zimbabwe's politically motivated violence has resulted in the
destruction
of hundreds of people's homes, thousands of children not
returning to school
after the 29 April restart of classes, and scores of
children beaten. It has
seen children turned away from schools and, in some
cases, schools used as
centres of torture," UNICEF said.
In
neighbouring South Africa - where between one and three million
Zimbabweans
are living, having escaped Zimbabwe's economic meltdown and
political
violence - they have been caught up in more than two weeks of
violent
xenophobic attacks that have killed at least 56 foreign
nationals.
"Today, many who fled violence and economic turmoil in their
own country,
and have sought refuge in South Africa, now find themselves
under attack,"
said UNICEF's Regional Director for Eastern and Southern
Africa, Per
Engebak.
"As always, it is children who are caught in the
middle of this - those
frightened and now homeless in South Africa, or the
thousands in Zimbabwe
who have seen their homes burnt and parents beaten;
others who have been
beaten themselves - this cannot
continue."
UNICEF said it was concerned about its ability to keep
programmes running
because of violence and restrictions. "It is vital that
our UNICEF programme
in Zimbabwe continues to reach all the children who
require assistance,"
Engebak said.
"Presently this is not the case,
and it is exacerbated by the fact that so
many have been forced into hiding
with their parents, away from the
education and health care that is their
right." Hundreds of thousands of the
most vulnerable children and orphans
depend on the organisation.
According to UNICEF, one in four Zimbabwean
children was orphaned and
although 90 percent were absorbed into extended
family systems, those
families were suffering unbearable stress, as
inflation has risen beyond
350,000 percent and, according to unofficial
estimates, as high as one
million percent.
[ This report does not
necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations ]
From SW Radio Africa, 29 May
By Tichaona Sibanda
State security agents
have reportedly been visiting the Warren Hills
cemetery in Harare, in a bid
to locate Tonderai Ndira’s unmarked grave. The
murdered MDC activist was
buried last Sunday. He was abducted from his
Mabvuku home on the 14th May
and his decomposing body was found dumped at a
farm in Goromonzi last week
and taken to Parirenyatwa hospital mortuary.
Since the formation of the MDC,
the hugely influential activist was arrested
35 times by the regime. His
brother Cosmos told us that state agents had
made several visits to the
graveyard insisting that municipal gravediggers
pinpoint his grave. The
gravediggers apparently refused to be drawn into
this highly charged
political issue and have refused to co-operate. When
Cosmos visited his
young brother’s grave on Thursday, intending to put a
marker on it,
concerned municipal workers told him of the visits by security
agents. They
also advised him not to leave the marker. It’s believed the
regime has an
idea of where the grave is, but there are several graves in
the vicinity
that are also not marked out, making it impossible to identify
Tonderai’s
grave.
The elder Ndira said municipal workers had became suspicious when
the
smartly dressed state agents told them they wanted to place a tombstone
on
Tonderai’s grave and needed to be shown where it was. ‘In our culture,
you
wait for a year before you place a tombstone and my brother has only
been
buried there for less than a week. I’m reliably informed they want to
dig up
his grave and take his body elsewhere to be dumped because they want
to get
rid of evidence. In fact I’m told state agents are furious that the
murdered
MDC activists are being buried there,’ Cosmos said. Last week,
three other
MDC activists who were abducted are killed early this month on
their way to
Murehwa were buried at the same cemetery. A very angry Cosmos
said
authorities should let his brother and friends rest in peace, saying
the
activists were central figures in the pro-democracy movement in Harare.
Cosmos said his brother was highly respected, greatly loved and admired. The
elder Ndira said security agents kept a close eye on his brother: ‘His home
in Mabvuku was like a remand prison - there was someone watching him every
minute. Now he’s dead but the regime won’t let him rest even in death. Their
oppression extends even in death. He cared profoundly about issues of social
and political justice, and of course was deeply committed to finding a
resolution that would allow all people in Zimbabwe to live in peace with
each other.’
VOA
By VOA News
30 May 2008
Zimbabwean
opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has stepped up his attacks on
President
Robert Mugabe, saying Zimbabwe has become an "unmitigated
embarrassment" to
Africa.
Mr. Tsvangirai made the comments during what he called a "state
of the
nation" address in Harare Friday to lawmakers from his Movement for
Democratic Change party.
Mr. Tsvangirai is trying to rally support
for his contest against President
Mugabe in a June 27 runoff
election.
Friday he promised sweeping political and economic reforms to
end the
government's authoritarian rule and revive an economy crippled by an
annual
inflation rate of more than 16,000 percent.
Mr. Mugabe
addressed a rally on Thursday northeast of Harare. He repeated
accusations
that MDC leaders are stooges for former colonial power Britain.
His wife
Grace said Mr. Mugabe will never leave office unless his successor
is from
the ruling ZANU-PF party.
The state-run Herald newspaper Friday quoted
Secretary for Education
Sikhanyiso Ndlovu as predicting Mr. Mugabe would win
75 percent of the vote
in next month's election.
The two sides accuse
each other of carrying out systematic attacks on
opponents ahead of next
month's runoff. The MDC says 50 of its supporters
have been killed. Human
rights groups and the U.S. ambassador, James McGee,
blame the government for
the violence.
The opposition MDC accused Mr. Mugabe's supporters of
rigging the initial
round of voting in March. Official results showed Mr.
Tsvanigirai defeating
Mr. Mugabe but falling short of the majority needed to
avoid a second round.
The MDC disputed those results but agreed to take part
in the runoff.
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com
May 30, 2008
By Oscar Chivi.
IN
THE last elections, the role which the Zimbabwe online newspapers played
in
the defeat of Zanu-PF was acknowledged by the Mugabe administration.
The
regime cannot stop the power of the Internet. I think all Zimbabweans
who
yearn for democratic change would like to congratulate you for that
contribution.
We are now going into a critical phase and we think
your role is required by
more than ten times fold. First, since your paper
is available to many
people in the Diaspora, the message should be let us go
back and exercise
our democratic right to vote the autocratic and despotic
state of Mugabe
out. This is our chance to define our own destiny. By making
that trip back
to Zimbabwe on June 27we will be defining our future. Nobody
can change
things for us and as Zimbabweans we should take that
responsibility now and
decisively.
Mugabe has invited us to come so
that he can allocate us land, but he
Is inviting us to come and vote him out.
The events of the last few days in
South Africa show that as Zimbabweans we
cannot afford to seek refugee in
other states forever.
We need to go
back and rebuild our own country and we cannot afford to
remain
economic
refugees indefinitely. First and foremost, we need to stop Mugabe
in
his
tracks now and nobody can do it for us. Only Zimbabweans who have the
right
to vote in the run-off elections can make that change.
Please, can you
get this message across to all Zimbabweans that by casting
their vote this
time, they are defining the Zimbabwe they want. Every
Zimbabwean has a duty
to contribute towards change, especially the
Zimbabweans in the Diaspora. We
should realize that a foreign country will
always be foreign, and home will
always be home. So let us rebuild our home,
Zimbabwe.
The
post-election violence perpetrated by Zanu-PF was meant to intimidate
and
discourage rural voters who had voted for the MDC. Let us assume Zanu-
PF
has succeeded in this venture, it is only the Diaspora vote which can
fill
this void. We know Zanu-PF wants to decrease the number of rural votes
for
the opposition through intimidation. We should thank the rural folks who
exercised their rights in the first round of the elections. They played
their part and it is now the turn of the people in the Diaspora to go back
and finish the work they started.
If we don’t go back to vote, we are
letting down our brothers and sisters in
Zimbabwe.
June 27 should be
the turning point in our history. We cannot continue to be
ruled by
rhetoric. We want development. Mugabe is denying us the right to
live in the
global village. The world has changed since the time of our
liberation. We
need to interact with the West as we do with our African
neighbors. Mugabe
is living in the shadows of history.
Now the divide is not white or
black, but underdevelopment and development.
We should learn to co-exist
with other countries in this world. In fact,
Mugabe is under-developing
Zimbabwe. We cannot emulate Mugabe who considers
everybody with a different
view to be an enemy. Why does this regime think
it is always
right?
Why are the views of other people not accommodated by the Mugabe
regime? We
say, “ No” to dictatorship.
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com
May 30, 2008
(An
Interview with Zvisinei C. Sandi)
by Russell Berman.
Zvisinei C. Sandi
is a writer from Zimbabwe, where she was active in the
democratic movement.
She is currently a Scholar Rescue Fellow at the Freeman
Spogli Institute at
Stanford University.
DESPITE extensive efforts to rig the March 29
elections, Zanu-PF proved
incapable of providing a victory to
Mugabe.
So the run-off election, which should have taken place promptly,
has been
postponed for 90 days - presumably to allow for more intimidation
of the
population, attacks on the opposition, and corruption of the
electoral
process. Yet the international press does not report on public
responses to
this blatant disregard for democratic process. How do you
explain the
domestic mood? Has the Zimbabwean population been beaten into
submission? Or
is there some strategy of resistance that is not carried in
the press?
No one knows just how much courage it takes to go out everyday and
fight
against Mugabe, when you’ve been told that there are comrades’ cameras
in
the ballot boxes and that his henchmen will be watching you. But
Zimbabweans
have shown that courage, they have gone out into the streets and
demonstrated, they have written, they have given press conferences and put
up blogs, even if some of their number have been shot down in cold blood,
terribly beaten up, or, worse still, arrested, detained, and slowly tortured
to death.
What are Zimbabweans expected to do?
They have a
government that is clinging on to power by sheer force,
responding to even
the slightest criticism with tremendous violence. The
system of oppression
covers the whole country. Even in the most remote
corners, where only one
bus passes each day, Mugabe’s henchmen are there.
Always ready for a fight,
they knock on every door, demanding contributions
(in cash) to Zanu-PF, and
driving everybody out to attend Zanu-PF meetings.
Anyone who is smart enough
will just hand over the money, and will go to the
meeting, for to do
otherwise is to sign your own death warrant.
These people will kill
without even stopping to blink, and they do not care
who knows it. They will
drag you out of your house, beat you to death, steal
your possessions and
then burn everything they cannot carry away. If a whole
town is at fault,
they will bring in a battalion of soldiers, riot police,
secret service
agents, and youth militia, and in the end Mugabe and his
people will
prevail. There are places in Zimbabwe’s rural areas where the
mere sound of
heavy vehicles approaching is enough to send people running
off into the
hills.
The majority of Zimbabwean people are law abiding citizens who
have
entrusted all of their law enforcement mechanisms into the hands of
their
government. They have no guns, no militias, nothing. Now that the
government
is the one that’s breaking the law, they have no effective means
of
resisting. They have done all that they can, and they cannot go any
further
without outside help. And that help is desperately needed now. One
of the
basic rules of human etiquette is that, if you see your neighbor’s
house
going up in flames, and you hear screams coming from within, you run
there
and you break the door down. Unfortunately, Zimbabwe’s neighbors seem
incredibly deaf.
The world’s indifference reminds me poignantly of
someone whom for years I
have been trying to forget - a teenage girl I once
shared a cell with. Time:
March 2003. Location: Bindura, a mining town and
90 km north of Harare.
There had been massive anti-Mugabe riots in a town
that had been believed to
be pro- Zanu-PF, and Mugabe, in retaliation, sent
whole detachments of army,
riot police, and intelligence to “clean up the
area”, The general strategy
was to keep these troops out of sight until the
main tide of commuters
returning from work had subsided (about 7 p.m.) and
then let them loose on
the town, beating every man, woman, and child found
outside of their home.
These troops would attack people in the street, the
restaurants, nightclubs,
driving in their cars, and even those who had
outside toilets and had to go
during the night.
I was caught out on the
second night of this crackdown, and I knew that even
though my home was only
half a mile away, there was no way I could get there
without running into
one of these groups. In desperation, I walked into a
police station and told
them a cock-and-bull story about being a traveler
who had missed my only bus
to a remote part of the country and now was too
scared to spend the night at
the bus stop because of thieves (no one
mentioned the obvious problem -the
troops). The ill-tempered sergeant looked
me over, and, deciding that I was
harmless, announced that he had no time to
waste and if that was what I
wanted he would lock me up for the night in a
holding cell, and I wasn’t
arguing.
One of my cellmates was a teenage girl who had come to report a
rape and
aggravated assault by unknown attackers. The police had
“considerately”
insisted on keeping her until they could find officers to go
with her and
arrest the perpetrators. In the meantime she stayed in the
horrible cell,
without medical care, food, or toilet facilities. In the
middle of the night
our door was pushed open and a group of men came in.
They kicked us and
demanded to know why each one of us was in the
cell.
When they heard the girl’s story, they simply went berserk. Calling
her a
cheap MDC [Movement for Democratic Change] tramp, they beat her up and
dragged her down the corridor to another cell, out of sight. I’ll never know
what they did to that child, but I’ll never forget her screams. She
screamed, and screamed over and over again for hours. She screamed for her
mother, for her father, for someone, anyone to come rescue her. But no one
came. And for that one child, no one will ever come again. And right there
in the middle of the panic and confusion and the pain she must have been
feeling, I could imagine what was going on in her child’s mind. Her mother
must have taught her that if she screamed help would come, right? Most of us
believe that, even me, in spite of everything. I could imagine her
desperation and her confusion as she realized that no one was going to help
her, ever. Now, more than five years later, I share her confusion. Why
doesn’t
someone do something?
What role does the South African
political leadership, especially Thabo
Mbeki, play with regard to the Mugabe
regime? One might have thought that
the establishment of democratic norms in
post-apartheid South Africa might
spill over into Zimbabwe.
Thabo Mbeki
has played a large role in Zimbabwe’s political crisis, and I am
afraid to
say that that role had been chiefly negative. If he had (at the
very least)
kept his hands off the Zimbabwean crisis from the beginning, it
is my belief
that the country would not have been in as bad a situation as
it is now. He
has wasted years for the Zimbabwean population, pretending to
be working for
peace in Zimbabwe, when all he was concerned with was the
welfare of Mugabe
and his Zanu-PF colleagues. Mbeki’s policy of “quiet
diplomacy” towards
Mugabe, seen now in its fading days, seems to be nothing
more than a
protective cocoon for the dictatorship in Zimbabwe. It allowed
Mbeki to
absorb all the pressure directed at Mugabe, giving that dictator
the space
and opportunity to unleash extreme violence against his own
people. The last
two words that the world heard from Mbeki on the Zimbabwean
question (just
weeks ago) were that there was in fact no crisis in Zimbabwe
and that Mugabe
must be given a free hand. Now the world can see the results
of Mbeki’s
advice.
What most people fail to appreciate is that there is a very close
link
between Mbeki and the ANC on the one hand and Mugabe and his Zanu-PF on
the
other. They stood side by side, as they fought for independence in their
respective countries. After 1980, the ANC and its leaders, among them Thabo
Mbeki, had to continue the anti-apartheid struggle for 14 long years after
Zimbabwe regained its own independence, relying heavily on the support of
the young nation for its struggle. Zimbabwe openly opposed the apartheid
government to such an extent that the apartheid regime felt that it had to
undertake a destabilization campaign against Zimbabwe, if only to discourage
it from assisting the ANC.
It is impossible to imagine that apartheid
agents were busy planting bombs
in Zimbabwe, without Mugabe’s Central
Intelligence Organization (CIO) also
being actively involved in South
Africa. As a result, Mbeki and Mugabe share
a strong bond. They have been
through a lot together, having stood shoulder
to shoulder through decades of
bloody conflict. Mbeki feels a strong
loyalty, alas, not to the Zimbabwean
people, but to Mugabe, his Zanu-PF
government, and the bloodthirsty War
Veterans militia that has so ravaged
the country. Like Mugabe, Mbeki cannot
understand the so-called
“Born-Frees,” the people whose voices have come up
after independence,
calling for more democratic rights and economic
development. According to
the reasoning of these veterans, why should these
young people want to take
power from the people who worked so hard to bring
the independence in the
first place?
In addition to these feelings of
loyalty, Mbeki might have an extra reason
for his “quiet diplomacy”. The
reports coming up suggest that Mbeki dirtied
his hands rather badly in the
anti-apartheid fight. One apparently credible
report ties Mbeki to the 1994
assassination of the popular ANC leader Chris
Hani, who was at the time the
most likely candidate to succeed Nelson
Mandela in the South African
presidency. If this is true, which I personally
believe it is, it is
unlikely that Mugabe’s CIO would have missed collecting
the evidence of such
a juicy piece of news and even less likely that it
would hesitate to use it
now as leverage against arguably the most powerful
figure in contemporary
African politics. The CIO has passed muster when it
comes to blackmail and
threats.
Aside from the political leadership in South Africa, do
prominent public
figures like Desmond Tutu play a role in condemning the
Mugabe dictatorship?
What about the influence of other African
leaders?
Prominent public figures in South Africa have been largely
silent on the
question of the Zimbabwean crisis. Partly because of Thabo
Mbeki’s role as
the official arbitrator in Zimbabwe and because of South
Africa’s
chairmanship of the United Nations Security Council, the Zimbabwean
problems
has been seen chiefly as a problem for politicians to solve. To
compound
matters, Mbeki has chosen, in order to protect Mugabe and to
centralize
power into his own hands, to stay personally in charge of the
Zimbabwean
situation.
Although he has never been particularly fond of
Mugabe, one prominent person
who has been surprisingly silent is the former
South African president,
Nelson Mandela. One would have expected that with
his record, and with what
he has personally suffered under an unjust regime,
he would have spoken out
against what is happening in Zimbabwe. His silence
is especially baffling. A
possible explanation for this is the anti-colonial
record that made Mugabe
one of the greatest heroes of the 20th Century.
Given everything he did for
African independence, attacking him would
probably seem to Nelson Mandela to
entail attacking everything that he
himself has stood for during the last
half century, a feeling shared by many
Africans who have not witnessed
Mugabe’s human rights atrocities
firsthand.
Unlike Thabo Mbeki, Desmond Tutu has not been silent. He has
consistently
called for international intervention to solve the crisis in
Zimbabwe, but
for some reason, he is one of the voices that in this case the
world has
chosen to ignore. I wonder why.
As for other African
leaders, until recently, there has been a level of
solidarity with Mugabe
that has left the rest of the world perplexed. We
have already discussed the
main cause of this - the Mbeki factor. Hiding
behind his policy of “quiet
diplomacy,” Mbeki has stood firmly beside
Mugabe, arguing that Mugabe needed
to be handled carefully since he would
not respond to hostile pressure. That
has put the two most powerful
countries in Southern Africa—South Africa and
Zimbabwe - on the same side,
and it would have therefore been unwise for the
weaker countries in this
region to show hostility to Mugabe’s policies; this
would have only exposed
them both militarily and in terms of international
politics.
The other factor to be considered in this question is economic
expediency.
It’s all very well to try and heal Zimbabwe’s shocking political
wound, but
until recently, all the trouble in Zimbabwe has actually
benefited its
neighbors. The white commercial farmers who lost everything in
Zimbabwe and
have largely been driven out of the country, have been welcomed
with open
arms in Zambia and Mozambique, where they have brought more than a
century
of farming experience. Now Zimbabwe, the region’s former bread
basket, is
trying to raise the foreign currency to buy some of the food that
the
farmers it kicked out are currently producing just across the
border.
Zambia, which until 2001 had relied on food imports, is now
racking in a lot
of foreign currency from food exports. The same goes for
tourism: once the
region’s most popular tourist destination, Zimbabwe is now
a pariah nation,
as tourists now prefer to go to either South Africa or
Zambia. The major
transnational corporations that once had their
headquarters in Harare have
long since moved to South Africa and any new
investments targeted at the
area will certainly not go to Zimbabwe, but to
one of its more peaceful
neighbors. So for Zimbabwe’s closest neighbors, the
soft policy on Mugabe
has paid off well.
The international press has
begun to report on outbreaks of anti-foreigner
violence in South Africa,
which frequently targets Zimbabweans. Do you see
some connection between
such violence and the larger political issues at
stake between Zimbabwe and
South Africa?
On the surface, the anti-Zimbabwe violence in South Africa
seems easy to
understand. For one thing, South Africa is a high crime
country, and much of
the crime is violent. People often kill each other over
trivial arguments,
and violent, often fatal robberies are for sums as small
as 100R (about 16
US dollars). Much of the violence is a carry-over from the
apartheid era,
when almost everything was criminalized, and it was virtually
impossible to
follow the law. Almost a decade and a half of the new ANC
government have
done nothing to change the situation. African communities
are still
desperately poor, the crime rate is still high and escalating, and
the
standards of education remain low. Into this situation you pour in
millions
of Zimbabweans who are fleeing the violence and the economic
meltdown in
their own country, and you have serious problems.
The
average Zimbabwean is far more educated and far more prepared to work
than
the average South African (under apartheid, African schools could not
teach
science, mathematics, or English, and the Mbeki government has been
hard-pressed to remedy the situation), which means that Zimbabweans get most
of the jobs that are up for grabs. To make matters worse, they are likely to
have much more money to start with (the South African government demands,
among other things, to see 2000R up front before a visa can be granted to a
Zimbabwe national). In addition, most Zimbabweans coming into South Africa
are not expecting to stay forever; they want to save as much money as
possible and send it home, which means that they tend to stick to the
cheapest possible accommodation, in the shacks— among the poorest of the
poor, who have no jobs, no education, and, as things stand now, no hope of
bettering their situation. It is easy to see how tension can build up and
explode into violence.
This, as I said, is how things appear on the
surface, until one looks more
closely at the situation and sees a more
sinister pattern at work. The real
culprits in the abuse of Zimbabwe
nationals are the authorities themselves,
namely the Zimbabwean and the
South African governments. First of all, in
recent years, the Mugabe
government has almost stopped issuing travel
documents at a time when the
economic crisis and the political situation
have made most of the population
desperate to travel, causing queues to form
outside the Registrar General’s
office in every town. People have been known
to sleep outside these offices
for weeks at a time, hoping against hope that
they would one day be among
the few whose names are called out.
In the end, most of these people give up
trying to get any travel document
and simply walk across the border without
documentation. The only place they
can go this way, without travel documents
and with no clear idea of where
and no plan of what to do once they get
there, is down to South Africa. Such
travel involves crossing the Limpopo
River (a dangerous venture, which, if
the river is in flood, often results
in drownings and crocodile attacks),
somehow making their way past the
border fence, made of sharp razor wire,
and then walking through miles of
forest, infested with wild animals and
desperate criminals that prey upon
the equally desperate population, until
they finally reach the relative
safety of Mussina, the South African border
town.
I personally took
that route when I left Zimbabwe for the last time, and I
can tell you that
it’s not an easy stretch. I had to hire a smuggler to
guide me through (he
dealt in anything, cooking oil, clothing, people,
potato chips—you name it)
and most of the time that I was with him I had no
idea where he would lead
me, whether through to safety or to rob me. I was
so brutalized at the time
that had he chosen to do so, I doubt that I could
have remembered his face,
and even if I had, where would I file my case? But
the basic decency of the
Shona people won through: he took me across,
stopping regularly to let me
rest because my body hurt, and even loaning me
his big jacket because it was
so cold. Once in Mussina, he even helped me to
arrange the next part of my
journey.
For most border jumpers, the next stage of the journey (and the
lawful one)
is to get to the offices of the South African Home Affairs and
apply for
asylum or at least some form of refugee documentation. Easier said
than
done. From the days or even weeks of sitting hopelessly outside the
Registrar General’s office in Zimbabwe, they go through the whole desperate
process, just to find themselves continuing to wait around in South Africa.
Outside the South African Home Affairs office at Marabastad in Pretoria, the
refugees are told to queue by country, and then the Zimbabwean line is
simply ignored.
One woman I spoke to in June last year (she had a
six-month-old baby in her
arms) told me that she had been living outside the
Marabastad offices for
two months. For these refugees, there are no toilet
facilities, no food, no
clean water, and no personal safety. Leaving the
compound to buy food across
the street might mean a gruesome arrest and
deportation process. According
to a report by the Zimbabwe Exiles Forum, the
Zimbabwean refugees at
Marabastad have been exposed to assault, rape, and
frequent robberies, while
desperately waiting for someone to attend to
them.
The sorry crowd at Marabastad is so reminiscent of the crowds
outside the
Registrar General’s offices in Zimbabwe that it suggests an
ominous
coordination of policy between the Zimbabwean government and its
South
African counterpart. One is never sure what to think.
The South
African government has consistently refused to acknowledge that
there is a
humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe, and in order to protect its
position, it
has refused to do anything about the thousands of Zimbabwean
refugees daily
flowing through its borders. Instead, there has been a
systematic policy to
frustrate and abuse the Zimbabwean refugees so that
they think twice before
coming into South Africa. There is a determined
effort to detect Zimbabwe
immigrants, arrest and deport them. In many cases,
according to the Zimbabwe
Exiles Forum, police demand papers from legal
Zimbabwean immigrants, and
then proceed to destroy them and then arrest the
immigrants concerned,
ostensibly for not having papers. Once arrested, the
repatriation process is
brutal, often including beatings upon arrest,
followed by long periods of
detention without any guidelines as to the time
frame of the repatriation
process. The daily manhunt directed at Zimbabweans
has become a major
occupation for the South African law enforcement
agencies, and this kind of
official hostility towards what has become a
significant part of the South
African population tends to filter easily to
the generality of the
population: “if the police are always chasing after
them, then there must be
something awfully wrong with them. Besides, they do
take all the good jobs!”
If the South African government and the
international community treated
those people as what they are - refugees in
need of help - then maybe the
majority of the South African people would
follow suit.
One question,
ridiculous as it might seem, has to do with the authenticity
of these riots.
Exactly who starts them? Who utters the first battle cry?
Who casts the
first stone? Experience has made me a doubter. Mugabe’s secret
intelligence
organization, the CIO, is all pervasive in Zimbabwe, to such an
extent that
no one knows how large it is. Its agents turn up among the bus
conductors,
street vendors, at university campuses, at schools, among the
homeless
population and in the endless queues, and they are fantastic at
organizing
and infiltrating demonstrations, a favorite technique, when they
want to
eliminate a certain member of the opposition or civil society.
Now, if
ordinary housewives can jump the border into South Africa, what is
there to
stop these hardened thugs from doing the same? There have been
rumors of
them doing so, and more sinister still, of them kidnapping certain
refugees
and jumping them back across the border into Zimbabwe. One of the
CIO’s
major accomplishments is its ability to make people “disappear,” and I
shudder to imagine the harm they can do if they penetrated the semi-legal
world of Zimbabwean refugees in South Africa. It’s a place full of
undocumented people, many of whom Mugabe would be glad to be rid off for
good. Many Zimbabwean activists in South Africa live in terror, constantly
turning their heads as they move around and will not go into crowded places,
and they have chilling stories to tell.
Gabriel Shumba, an exiled
Zimbabwean lawyer who heads the Zimbabwe Exiles
Forum, tells of threats he
received at the African Union Summit in Accra,
Ghana in June of last year,
when he went to present the case of more than a
dozen victims of the
violence in Zimbabwe. One CIO boss openly told him not
to feel too safe just
because he now lived in South Africa.
“He told me that they knew where I
lived and if they wanted me badly enough,
they could arrange for me to wake
up in a Zimbabwean jail, and this time
they would finish the job (Shumba has
been tortured in Zimbabwe). I think he
meant it.”
If one looks back
to 2000, the bloody land seizures started as a “civil
demonstrations.” The
only indication that the government was involved was
that the police refused
to step in and stop it, arguing that they were not
equipped to put down put
down riots of such a magnitude. At the time, we
heard almost exactly the
same xenophobic claims we are hearing in the South
Africa disturbances. Even
in academic circles, white-baiting showed its ugly
head. There was a lot of
confusion until the government finally came out
into the open and admitted
that it had been responsible from the beginning.
Then the really bloody
times began and no one was safe—White, Black,
Ndebele, Shona, or Venda. That
is how the CIO operates.
Most people I have talked to in South Africa say
that there is little
evidence that the CIO is involved and maybe they are
right, but I have been
around the block and I am still suspicious. I have
simply seen too much.
VOA
By VOA News
30 May 2008
Zimbabwe
has dispatched a fleet of vehicles to South Africa to bring home
Zimbabweans
displaced by a recent wave of attacks on foreigners.
Zimbabwean officials
said Friday they have sent two trucks and 10 buses to
pick up any
Zimbabweans who want to be repatriated.
Two weeks of violence in South
Africa, beginning May 11, left 56 people dead
and forced tens of thousands
from their homes. The displaced people have
been living in police stations,
town halls and churches.
The attackers accused immigrants of taking jobs
and increasing crime rates.
About three million of South Africa's
estimated five million immigrants are
from Zimbabwe. Most of them came to
South Africa to escape their country's
economic collapse.
At least
two other countries - Ethiopia and Malawi - have offered to
evacuate
nationals wanting to escape the anti-foreigner attacks.
South African
President Thabo Mbeki says the attacks, led by angry mobs,
disgraced the
country.
Critics accuse the government of responding slowly to the crisis
and not
addressing the issue of poverty, widely considered the cause of the
tension.
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com
May 30, 2008
By
Munyaradzi Mutizwa
JOHANNESBURG - South Africa Justice for Prisoners and
Detainees Trust (JPDT)
said on Thursday that the South African Government
should declare attacks
against foreigners to be a crime against
humanity.
JPDT said this reacting to a wave of xenophobic attacks
spreading across
mostly poor suburbs of South Africa’s cities, where gangs
of locals, armed
with guns, machetes and other home-made weapons have looted
several shops
owned by foreigners.
The surge has claimed the lives of
more than 50 people while between 35 000
and 40 000 people had been
displaced.
“In JPDT’s opinion, this latest round of attacks is more
associated with
criminal behaviour than mere hatred for foreigners. Not so
long ago, all
these countries who are now considered a nuisance, welcomed
South Africans
in exile, during the struggle years, and South Africans were
not called
“amakwerekwere” and other derogatory names. They have been a part
of the
fabric of South African society for decades, and it is instructive
that we
now turn against our fellow brothers and sisters on the eve of
elections”,
JPDT Director Derrick Mdluli said
He added: “We also want
to appeal to the attackers not to be used as pawns
by anybody with a
nefarious personal agenda. There seems to be a planned and
concerted drive
to these attacks, which raises questions as to who is really
behind (them).
We will ensure that they get prosecuted and get punished to
the full extent
of the law.”
Speaking to the media government spokesperson Themba Maseko
said the
violence could not be attributed to a single factor and was not
necessarily
the work of a so-called “third force”. He said the cabinet had
received a
report from the special task team probing the issue, and the
violence could
not be attributed to a single cause.
“Rather, it was
the result of a complex set of factors”, said Maseko
Meanwhile on the
same day the Institute of Directors (IoD) called on South
African companies
to challenge the government and country’s leaders to end
the brutality in a
speedy and non-violent manner
“Post 1994 was a South Africa to be proud
of and I was often amazed and in
awe of our ability to be tolerant of
others. We, therefore, call on South
African companies to speak-up and urge
our leaders to get involved and put
an end to the violence.” IoD Chief
Executive, Lindie Engelbrecht said
She said the xenophobic attacks would
lead to increased poverty as is
damaging an economy that is already
struggling with a recession.
Furthermore, foreign investment is dwindling
and beneficial prospects such
as the 2010 FIFA World Cup are being
threatened.
“Companies have a duty to protect their workforce and
specifically those
from neighbouring countries that are working here on
valid work permits.
Many of these people are no longer foreigners but people
who have made South
Africa their homes and have contributed in a very
positive manner to the
economic wealth and growth of our country” she
said
International Organization for Migration (IOM)
Date: 30 May
2008
Zimbabwe: IOM opens second reception and support centre at Plum
Tree to
assist migrants returned to Zimbabwe
With some 4,000
Zimbabwean migrants forcibly returned each month from
Botswana, the IOM
office in Harare, in cooperation with the Government of
Zimbabwe, is opening
a second reception and support centre at Plum Tree, a
town close to the
Botswana border, to provide humanitarian assistance to the
returnees.
The IOM humanitarian assistance programme provides
returned migrants with
transportation, food rations, basic medical care, HIV
and AIDS prevention,
and awareness on the dangers of irregular migration,
including human
trafficking and smuggling.
As part of the programme,
border officials and police from both countries
will receive training on
irregular migration, HIV and AIDS, and sexual and
gender-based violence
issues.
IOM will also work with mobile populations such as truck drivers,
informal
cross border traders and commercial sex workers who reside
intermittently in
the border area. This component of the programme aims to
provide unbiased
and objective information to migrants to allow them to make
informed
decisions, and to prevent and counter misinformation and
misunderstandings -
not only about migration issues, but about the link
between mobility and HIV
and AIDS.
Marcelo Pisani, IOM's Chief of
Mission in Zimbabwe, explains, "cross-border
migration is a daily reality in
Southern African, so IOM is lending its
expertise to governments in the
region to assist them to better manage
migration, including advice and
support in policy-making and dialogue."
The programme also aims to
strengthen the relationship between the
Ministries of Home Affairs in
Botswana and Zimbabwe and IOM, similar to the
strong coordination mechanisms
already established with Zimbabwe and South
Africa.
Implemented in
cooperation with the governments of Zimbabwe and Botswana,
local immigration
officials, Population Services International, District
AIDS Action
Committee, and UN agencies, including WFP, UNICEF, and UNAIDS,
the programme
is funded by the Swedish International Development Agency
(SIDA).
Since the opening on 31 May 2006 of its first IOM
humanitarian reception and
support centre in Beitbridge on the border with
South Africa, IOM has
assisted more than 206,000 Zimbabweans
migrants.
For more information, please contact Erin Foster at IOM Harare,
Tel: + 263 4
355044 or +263 912 572 315, Email: efoster@iom.int